Gold Coast’s shonky homes, apartments and towers: Q1, Focus Apartments, Riverstone Crossing estate
From cracks and rust at the city’s tallest residential building to concrete cancer at a long standing Surfers Paradise tower – here’s some of the Gold Coast’s shonkiest homes, apartments and buildings.
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FROM landslides and falling walls to rust and flooding, these are the horror stories behind the construction nightmares on the Gold Coast.
MILLION DOLLAR SLIDE
A Bulletin investigation in May detailed how families could no longer live in their million-dollar-plus homes at the Riverstone Crossing estate at Maudsland.
It was found in-ground swimming pools were sliding down hills and wooden decks were on dangerous tilts.
Several homeowners were forced to evacuate their properties.
Residents suspect their houses had been built on a water course that covers at least 50m, and the soil used for it was not controlled so compaction did not occur.
Payment for the damages has caused a legal fight between the Gold Coast City Council and residents.
The case is still before the courts.
TOWNHOUSES TAKE A FALL
In 2016 townhouses in Elanora slid down a hill towards neighbouring property.
In documents lodged with the Supreme Court, Double RKR, a company owned by Burleigh locals Daniel, Mark and Michael Russell, said it purchased land at 30 Sapphire Dr, Elanora, for $2 million in 2015.
It built 18 townhouses there for its Palm Beach Heights development the following year.
The Burleigh developer was seeking more than $10 million damages from the council, engineers, a builder, property agents, a deceased estate and insurers over the costly disaster.
The case is still before the courts.
COAST BUILDING’S ‘WILD WILD WEST’
The boss of a company assessing buildings for defects warns the Gold Coast is the “wild, wild west” for builders and “99 per cent” of high-rises have problems that need to be fixed.
Helensvale-based Structural Diagnostics general manager Adam Husband said of more than 200 new builds and 400 older buildings inspected by his company on the Gold Coast in the last five years, only one got a clean bill of health.
Among buildings on the Gold Coast that Mr Husband’s company has inspected recently are a Surfers Paradise high-rise where windows are loose in their frames, another Surfers Paradise high-rise where the handrail on the balcony could be pushed over by hand and a Labrador high-rise where glass planes have fallen from the building.
HIGH-RISE FLOORS FLOODED
Homeowners faced a hefty damage bill after a rooftop pool flooded more than six floors of a Gold Coast high-rise in 2019 leaving some apartments “unlivable”.
The Golden Gate Resort on Surfers Paradise Boulevard looked more like a water park in March 2019 after a pipe on one of the penthouse apartment pools began leaking through the apartments below.
It didn’t take long for the water to soak through ceilings, carpets and furniture on the eastern side of the 33-storey building.
While floors 33-27 bore the brunt of the damage, residents as far down as level five also had water seeping through their homes.
CONCRETE CANCER HEFTY BILL
Management of a Gold Coast high-rise riddled with concrete cancer in 2016 were forced to borrow more than $1.3 million to stop “concrete chunks falling from the building”.
The details were contained in a damming engineering report to Focus Apartment management which warned the problem with eroded concrete was “2.5 times” worse than originally estimated.
In the report, Kavanaugh Consulting Engineers director Peter Kavanaugh said unit owners could be forced to pay a total of $2.7 million to prevent “extremely dangerous” deterioration.
Mr Kidson told the Gold Coast Bulletin chunks of concrete had previously fell from Focus.
NIGHTMARE RESORT
A GOLD Coast resort had so many faults only five years after completion it left stressed residents at their wits’ end.
Residents of the Silverstone apartment complex on the Queensland-NSW border said they were living a nightmare in 2014.
Hundreds of alleged defects included extensive corrosion and rust, mould, leaks, cracking tiles, flaking paint, rotting timber, “extremely unsafe” stairs and improper fireproofing were at the centre of a long-running and expensive legal battle between unit owners and Australian Stock Exchange-listed developer Villa World.
In November 2016 Villa World said the Federal Court had dismissed the case.
It came after all parties had complied with a confidential deed of settlement over the lengthy and bitter battle.
CRACKS IN Q1
In 2009, the Gold Coast’s Q1 high-rise was a rusting, leaking tower, according to some angry apartment owners.
Only four years after moving into his “sky home”, one owner claimed defects had emerged in the 79-storey tower and it had fallen into a state of disrepair.
The Building Services Authority confirmed in October 2009 it had received three complaints regarding Q1 – one which had been rectified relating to water leaking into an engine and plant room and two others it was still investigating.
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